


Other Lives

by Thistlerose



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Infidelity, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 05:00:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2096673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in 2002.  In another life, Dorothy and Wufei are modern-day actors.  Like most of the characters they play, despite their passion, they just can't seem to get it together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the quotations throughout this story are from Shakespeare, though the opening scene is from the end of James Goldman's "The Lion in Winter."

He offered her his hand. "Come the resurrection, you can strike me down again."

She lifted her chin, her ice-blue eyes gleaming in the semi-darkness like a promise of steel. "Perhaps I'll do it next time."

"And perhaps you won't."

She took his arm. The grey waterfall of her gown shimmered along her blade-slim body as she rose. "It must be late," she said, "and I don't want to miss the tide."

He covered her white hand with his own large, bronzed one as they walked from the cell. "You know," he said suddenly, his voice rich with mirth and wistfulness, "I hope we never die."

She replied quietly, "I hope so, too."

His dark eyes followed her as she disappeared into the darkness of the curtain as it was drawn across the stage. "Do you think there's any chance of it?"

~*~

The dressing room was so tiny that it barely had room for one person, a dresser, and a chair. So for two people to have sex in it took a fair amount of agility and ingenuity.

Dorothy's back hit the mirror with a thud as Wufei pushed her onto the dresser. "Hurry," she hissed, her sharp nails raking through his thick raven hair as he fumbled with the lacing of her _bliaut_. "We don't have much time."

There was a snap as the lace broke apart and Dorothy's breasts surged against the loosened garment. "The seamstress is going to kill me," she chuckled as she traced kisses up the side of his face. "That's the second one this week."

"Fuck her," was the low-pitched answer.

"I'd rather fuck you." She yanked his head back by the hair and smiled down at him triumphantly. "My Henry. My Antony. My Petruchio."

"Woman," he growled. His voice was dark with lust; his eyes held sparks. He pushed her skirt up over her knees, sweeping makeup compacts, vials of perfume, fake jewels, and wigs off the dresser as he did. "You're not wearing your chemise," he observed as he slid a hand between her legs. He ran his fingers lightly over the coarse hairs that grew over the place where her thighs met. "Or any other kind of undergarment."

She cocked an eyebrow at him and tossed her hair back. The clips and pins had come loose and the wild, silver-white silky stuff tumbled down her back. "How observant you are. I told you we didn't have much time. I didn't want to waste any." She leaned into his hand, biting her lip against a moan as his fingers probed her hot, wet core.

"What the hell are you waiting for, then?" He wrapped his other arm around her waist, pulled her close so she could feel his erection, and tugged at her neckline with his teeth. "Get me the hell out of these damn stockings. Why should you have all the fun?"

It was done quickly, and his _dalmatic_ and _alb_ , and her mantle soon followed. Once he was naked he took her in his arms again and thrust hard, burying himself in her. She stifled a scream against his shoulder and clenched her legs about his waist.

"Harder," she whispered. "Come on. My king, my..."

"Wanton," he hissed back. "My Queen Eleanor, Cleopatra, Katharina..."

He pushed her legs back further, pushed her against the mirror. She gripped the edge of the dresser and threw her head back, showering them both with her hair. He kissed her breasts, marveling at their fullness and softness when every other part of her seemed so hard. He thrust into her again and again, his ardor stoked by her bitten-off cries, by the wild-animal scent of her, by the way she pushed back against him, drawing him deeper inside, tantalizing him with glimpses of her secret soul.

He pulled out suddenly, panting. He had to pace himself. He was going to lose himself inside her if he did not.

She lifted her head and looked at him, her legs wide apart, her lips quirked into an odd smile. Sweat-dampened hair coiled around her throat, her arms, and her breasts.

"Christ," he muttered.

"Had enough?" She reached down and touched the tip of his erection with her fingertips. He groaned. "No, not yet, I see. Wouldst thou leave me so unsatisfied? Whatever is the matter, darling?"

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"What you're doing. I can't--" He drew a deep breath and tried not to look at her. She wrapped her leg around his waist again and--good God--he felt the heat of her arousal against his skin. "Dorothy, stop. I'm married."

"You say that as though it matters." Nevertheless she uncoiled herself from him and looked at him frankly. "Don't tell me you're experiencing guilt pangs NOW. They can't wait until after?"

"I always feel them," he admitted.

"For a woman you don't love. For a vow you did not mean, a match that was arranged."

Her voice was hushed, but her anger struck him like tiny knives. He did not flinch, but accepted it as he did his wife's scorn for his profession. "Whether I wanted the match or not is beside the point. Honor is involved."

She laughed. She had an odd laugh; it sounded like tiny silver bells peeling from a long way away. "And yet you are an actor. You play at being noble, and you fuck me backstage. Why is that, my dear? Could there be something that supersedes honor?"

He grabbed her and crushed her lips against his own. Why did he try? He had no honor, only a passion for acting and for this woman. She kissed him back hungrily, nibbling his lower lip with small, sharp teeth, opening her mouth to let in his tongue.

They came together again. Somehow. There was no conscious thought involved, only suddenly she was bent over the dresser while he thrust from behind. He could strangle her with her hair, he thought as he looped the stuff around his wrist. He could strangle both of them together, maybe. His other hand found her breast (that one soft part of her) and he kneaded it, ignoring the taut nipple.

Her eyes met his in the mirror. "My bounty is as boundless as the sea," she whispered. "My love as deep...." 

 

"I don't love you," he said later, after they had both come, and lay together in a sweaty tangle of arms and legs on the dressing room floor. It wasn't true, but he said it to her every time, as protection.

"I know." She picked up one of the fallen wigs and placed it on his head.

"It's too HOT," he grumbled and started to lift a hand to brush it off. But that required too much effort; he let the hand fall and rest against her thigh, which he squeezed. She wriggled against him, surprisingly kittenish, and turned her head so that her cheek rested against his breast.

"I wonder where we'll be next month," she murmured. "Next week, even. When the show closes next Wednesday night and you disappear backstage, are you gone forever, then? Or will we have one last gaudy night?" She ran her fingers lightly over his chest, grazing the slick skin.

"Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand, and with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze. Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops, and all the haunt be hours."

"You would make a splendid Antony," Dorothy said. "I wouldn't mind being your Cleopatra. Or your Katharina."

"Juliet?"

"Not Juliet." She shook her head, showering them with pale yellow silk. "I'm too old."

Wufei frowned at the dim lights that burned above them in the dark haze of the room. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Not thirteen that's for certain." She laughed again and this time it sounded nearer, sounded as though it actually came from the woman lying in his arms. "Too old to be Juliet," she said decisively. "Maybe not too old to remember wanting to be her. Too late, though." She turned her head, rested her chin against his chest and gazed steadily into his eyes. "What other roles do you see for us?"

"Brief ones. Tragic ones." He tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled; he had that much strength at least. "We'll have to wait for our next lifetime for our happy ending."

"And if not then?"

"We keep waiting if we can stand it."

"Maybe," she said, clearly relishing the idea, "we both did something really rotten in the past and this is our punishment, to keep playing opposite each other, but when the curtain falls you go home to Meilan and I go home alone. I wonder what we did. I hope if was very, very scandalous. I'd be ashamed of us if it wasn't."

"Maybe we were Henry and Eleanor. If I were a king in another life, believe me, you would have been my queen if it killed me. Probably that's what happened. I wonder where we'll turn up many lifetimes from now. Will I know you?"

"I have to go." She said it so abruptly that at first he thought he had misheard. But she started to rise, bumped her shoulder on the dresser, and swore.

"So soon?"

"Yes, so soon." She rubbed her shoulder, smiled ruefully. "I have to get this dress to the seamstress before she leaves. Then I have to catch the subway, get home, feed my cat, and figure out what I'm doing for dinner. And you have to get home to your wife. Until next time." She swooped suddenly and kissed his mouth with the innocent ferocity of a Juliet. Her scent broke around him like a wave, purer than it had ever been when they fucked. It dazzled him, and he lifted his arms to touch her but she was away just as swiftly as she fell upon him, disappearing once again into the darkness. "Until we meet again, darling."

"Do you think there's any chance of it?" he asked the cold air that had once been full of her warmth.

Her laughter tinkled like silver bells chiming from far away. 

5/25/02


End file.
